When talking about landscapes in the traditional context, it’s mostly about reclusion. Although true recluses are rare, the mountains and rivers are always there. Ironically, the real landscapes are actually “horrible nature” instead of some leisure place. The traditional landscape paintings are a kind of “tame nature,” which were described as “To observe with meditation, and lie down to experience” and “Sitting in the forest and spring instead of go to banquet” by ancient Chinese poets. It emerge at North and South Dynasty, then become a game of finding the essence during the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, and finally stuck in the static self-development after the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The development of landscape paintings are just like how people detach with the nature and entering urban life. This album is the continuation of this thesis. In a time when the virtual reality are replacing urban life, we attempt to reinterpret this cliche with improvisation that based on the topic of “landscape.” We also naming the songs by minutes and seconds instead of the traditional way of titling the songs, which is based on its imagery. That creates interactive between the “teller” and listener, and reflects the beauties for individuals due to their own aesthetic experiences. At this time, the distant, outmoded, cumbersome and vague image of landscape might leave a huge space for “starting again.”

Instrumental by Liu Zhu (bamboo flute) /Qi Ya (Guitar)

Recorded by Qi Ya at Ningbo、Hanzhou、 in 2016-2018 and Liu Zhu at New York in 2016

Agama is transliterated from a Sanskrit term “āgama.” In Buddhism, the term āgama is used to refer to a collection of sutra of the early Mahāyānistic Buddhist schools. It was collected and published by Buddha’s scholarly students after Buddha’s death. It was the very first written down sutra, and also the origin of later Buddhism doctrine. In this album Sramana Jiran selects Buddhist hymns freely from the four extant collections of āgamas, and composing them as a collection of āgama songs. The last song of the album is a cover of a two thousand years old song — “Epitaph of Seikilos,” which engraved on a tombstone from the Hellenistic town Tralles near present-day Aydin, Turkey. The epitaph has been variously dated, but seems to be either from the 1st or the 2nd century AD. (In the East it is the time during the Han Dynasty, which is also the time when Buddhism was introduced into China.) The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving ancient Greek musical notation, and at the same time, is the oldest surviving complete musical composition from anywhere in the world. The recomposed version of this song was attached at the end of this album.

Instrumental by Liu Zhu (bamboo flute) /Qi Ya (Guitar)

Voice by Yuan Tian/ Liu Zhu / Qi Ya

Lyrics editor: Sramana Jiran

Recorded by Qi Ya at Ningbo、Hanzhou in 2016-2018 and Yuan Tian at Chengdu in 2016